Earlier this week downstate emo icons American Football announced they’d reunite to perform a couple shows, the first of which will be in September at the tenth Pygmalion Festival down in Champaign; tickets go on sale tomorrow at 11 AM. I bet the group will end up on the Riot Fest bill, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to see them play in their hometown. The three-piece started in 1997, a little more than a decade after the birth of emo during the 1985 Revolution Summer in Washington, D.C., and they’ve become an integral part of the genre’s canon—the legions of fourth-wave groups that try to evoke the feeling of slowly walking on fallen leaves in autumn are a testament to American Football’s enduring influence.
Next month Polyvinyl will reissue American Football’s 1999 self-titled LP with some additional demos, practice sessions, and live recordings from a collection of cassette tapes guitarist Steve Holmes found back in 2012. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is one of those live recordings—this one is of the band playing a long, hypnotic track called “The 7’s” at Champaign’s Blind Pig back in 1997. Give it a listen below.
